


runaway (they should have seen it in your eyes)

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Sand People, Slavery, To Be Continued, Tuskan Raiders, anakin runs away from wattos shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:05:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15771927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: anakin runs away from watto's shop.they have to find him again. the force sensitive boy who raises himself in the desert.





	runaway (they should have seen it in your eyes)

Anakin panted as the sun beat down upon his face, his feet dragging through the sand as he pulled himself over yet another dune. He tilted his canteen upside down above his face to try and get another taste of water, but there wasn’t a single drop left. The boy’s lower lip trembled. It was hot, his whole body ached, and he missed his mother. She had brushed his hair out of his eyes earlier, pressed the map into his hands, and told him to go. That she would find him again. But that was days ago; the scorching hot days and the freezing cold nights inch by slowly when one is exhausted, but he couldn’t remember how many it had been. All he knew is that he was out of food, water… he managed to sit down on a nearby rock before fainting, falling face down into the unforgiving desert sands.

-

Back home, Shmi was tending the shop. She was sore, her body revolting against every motion after she had been nearly killed for giving her son a path to freedom. She hadn’t sent him to family, no. Too dangerous. She knew that would put all of them in danger. And the risk of him escaping was large; if he was found again, he could be killed, or sold to another owner, or in the least severely punished. She knew that her son could do it, knew that he could reach the spaceport with the map and the letter in his backpack in time before the ship left to Piroket. Once he was off planet, she could work to come find him, but she wanted him off this rock as soon as possible. The bell rang and she turned to greet the long haired man before her. A Jedi! “Hello,” she said quietly, moving forwards.

Qui-Gon smiled kindly in her direction. A Jedi could help her son get offworld, if they could find him; much better than him being among smugglers. She approached cautiously, sure she would be killed if they found out she was enlisting the help of a Jedi. “Excuse me, Madame, would you happen to have a hyperdrive in stock? I’m afraid we’ve broken down.” Shmi nodded quietly, but it was obvious that she was afraid. Slavery made Qui-Gon’s heart ache.

“Over here,” she said quietly, leading the older man around Watto’s shop. When she was sure they were out of eyeshot and earshot, she started talking.

“Master Jedi, I need your help,” she began, quickly hushing him as she gave him her address so they could speak later. He nodded, as though understanding completely, and went to find Padme to keep the girl from touching something she would probably end up breaking. As it turned out, the hyperdrive was too expensive for them to buy immediately, so it looked like they were stuck on-world for at least a week. While it made the situation rather dire, it did more to Shmi’s resolve then anything.

“If you can find my son,” she said, “-then I can get you your hyperdrive.”

There wasn’t much more to the situation then that. Qui-Gon set back to the ship, determined to find a way off the planet. If he was, the way was through a desert boy named Anakin Skywalker.

-

Anakin woke to chatter. He opened his eyes slowly, peeking around in horror. He was tied by the arms to a wooden post, all that he could see was canvas tents. Where was he? He tried to pull away from the restraints but they were unbearably strong. He cried out, voice cracking from the lack of water. Surely this wasn’t were his mother intended to send him! He couldn’t remember how he got here, so he guessed he must have passed out. Wouldn’t be the first time.

His cries, however, attracted attention he didn’t really need; two Sandpeople entered the tent, grunting at him. He went silent as they stepped to both of his sides. Oh, god, he was going to die here.

-

Obi-Wan Kenobi was a teenager with an affinity for hotwiring speeders. His Master didn’t exactly know where he picked it up, and normally he would complain, but not when they had a desert to cross. Kriff, how did Shmi expect a child to cross this amount of desert himself?

The first place to check was the station, and then they would retrace the path he would have taken if they could find no sign of him there. They packed all the supplies they could and set out; they would get to the station in three days time, minimum, with a speeder. Obi-Wan waited until they were a ways out of the settlement to speak up. “Master?” he cried over the winds of the desert roaring in his ears. “Why go look for the boy? Why not just take the speeder? Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?”

“It’s where the Force is taking us,” Qui-Gon said, and Obi-Wan fell silent. They took turns driving; they didn’t dare risk stopping to set up camp when Tusken Raiders were about and time was of the essence.

Obi-Wan was in front, piloting the speeder, when he felt something ripple in the Force. He screamed and slammed on the breaks as his eyesight was clouded with visions. A boy, harvesting some sort of fruit. He saw red blood and yellow eyes and fire, he saw himself giving into rage, but it all happened so fast that he couldn’t make much sense of it. He heard someone screaming through the Force.

Anakin Skywalker hadn’t made it to the station.

-

Anakin needed to get out of here. Everything hurt, either from the beatings or from being forced to pick black melon for the Sand People for the last four days. He missed his mother.

His head hung as he was tied back up, knowing that if he fought back he would be met with anger and abuse. When they left, however, he felt the bottled up rage come to the surface. 

He needed to find a way out.

In his rage, he focused on the wooden cross holding him up. He wished he could break it, but he was too weak, he knew that. And then it broke.

In a panic, Anakin pulled his arms to his chest. How had that happened? Perhaps the wood had gotten too dry. Quickly he grabbed the ration pack and black melon that had been laid out to feed him tomorrow and downed both, making a face at the taste of the melon.

-

It was late in night that Qui-Gon felt a disturbance in the Force on their fifth night out looking. As Obi-Wan had predicted, the boy had never arrived, and they were tracing back over the land when Qui-Gon stopped the speeder. “Master?” Obi-Wan murmured, shaking himself awake.

Qui-Gon ignored him and hopped off the speeder, closing his eyes and pressing his hands together. The Force was strong here; but what had made it so? Glancing around, his eyes focused on a brown patch covering a nearby rock. “That’s blood,” he observed, barely realizing that he’d said it out loud as he approached. Obi-Wan inhaled sharply and followed, expecting a gruesome scene to be laid out before them.

The blood on the rocks is what was really convincing them both to rely solely on the Force to get to Anakin in time. In time, being the key phrase.

They could only hope.


End file.
